By John Helmer, Moscow

Grave robbers used to need special skills to make their living.  Indifference to getting their hands dirty was one; a flexible spine for shovelling in the dark was another.  A nose and throat which didn’t gag at  the smell of rotting flesh was a third. 

John Witherow (lead image, right) , editor of the Times of London, has displayed some talents for his  37-year long rise in the service of Rupert Murdoch. He’s been so keen on grave robbing that once he didn’t realize the corpse he was lifting and selling in his newspaper was still alive. In that enterprise, Witherow’s accomplice was the Moscow correspondent for the Sunday Times, Mark Franchetti (lead image, left).  Their idea was that selling stories about a dead Russian agent was bound to attract paying readers. In January 2005 they tried it with the name of Claudia Wright, who was the Washington correspondent for the New Statesman of London between 1979 and 1986; also my wife.

This month Witherow is trying again, promoting a book by his associate editor Ben Macintyre. The corpse this time is different – it’s Michael Foot, the former Labour Party leader; he died in 2010.  

But Witherow is careless. Macintyre’s new tale gives the lie to the one Witherow and Franchetti dug up about Claudia thirteen years ago. Claudia, they reported then, had tipped off the Soviet KGB to the identity of Oleg Gordievsky, one of the best double-agents the British Secret Service claims to have run against Moscow.  Macintyre says the report of the Claudia tip-off was a lie – “a false lead” according to Macintyre’s source at the CIA. The real tipster he now declares was the KGB’s double-agent at the CIA, Aldrich Ames, who told his handler in Washington, the head of KGB counter-intelligence in the US, Victor Cherkashin.

Macintyre reports also that Gordievsky, with the benefit of hindsight, says the same thing.

Cherkashin  published his own book in 2005.  “Ames also informed us that Gordievsky agreed to spy for MI6,” according to Cherkashin. “Ames identified Gordievsky in March [1985], the month before he started spying for us.”  Like Gordievsky, Cherkashin denied that Claudia had been the tipster.  Witherow and Franchetti ignored what both of them said, then turned their saying it upside down so that they became the Times’s sources for “speculation” about Claudia.

Cherkashin’s book concluded this was “little more than intelligence games. Their connection to real issues of national security…was often peripheral…during the last years of the Cold War, intelligence became a game of penetrating the adversary’s service. It was expensive and superfluous.” Unless you are selling the game to gullible readers. (more…)

by Editor - Friday, September 28th, 2018
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By John Helmer, Moscow

At 19:50 on Thursday evening Moskovsky Komsomolets (MK), one of the largest circulation newspapers in Russia, published an announcement from Dmitry Peskov, spokesman for the Kremlin.  “The Russian President’s Press Secretary Dmitry Peskov has said that the Kremlin will check information from the investigation of Bellingcat and The Insider on suspects of the Salisbury poisoning of the Skripals where it is claimed that Ruslan Boshirov, accused by London of involvement,  is a member of GRU, Hero of Russia, Colonel Anatoly Chepiga. In the words of Peskov, in the Kremlin [officials] intend to check the lists of recipients from the President of this title. He added that the official position is still unchanged. And it was announced by the President, and the suspects themselves.”

When Peskov claimed the Kremlin “will [sic] check information from the investigation of Bellingcat”, more than twenty-four hours had already passed since he had first seen the Bellingcat report on Boshirov and Chepiga. That Peskov did not already have the GRU file on Chepiga, the Hero of Russia list, and the relationship between Chepiga and Boshirov is impossible.  

The statement has stunned Moscow political sources. Their assessment is that the man who says these things because he believes them to be true, or because he believes Russians and others will believe he is telling the truth, has lost contact with reality. “I have not seen such unprofessional conduct at any time throughout Putin’s presidency,” commented a veteran Moscow publisher. “This means they are  making things up as they go along.”

“Peskov’s last line is the most extraordinary of all. He is saying Putin is running this show and he is doing a bad job of it. Peskov put responsibility for the entire Skripal affair on to Putin, and implied he should deal with it himself. Peskov just threw Putin under the bus.” (more…)

by Editor - Thursday, September 27th, 2018
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By John Helmer, Moscow

Last week President Vladimir Putin triggered the most serious crisis of his presidency, as the Defence Ministry and the Russian General Staff (Stavka) declared that Putin’s explanation for the downing of the Ilyushin-20 electronic reconnaissance aircraft by Israeli fighters was false, and worse –capitulation to Israel. 

Sources in Moscow report the military’s  loss of confidence in the Commander-in-Chief has not been seen in public since President Boris Yeltsin countermanded orders for Russian military aid to Serbia under NATO bombing between March and June 1999, dismissing Prime Minister Yevgeny Primakov on the US demand.  

“[Putin] has blundered with Erdogan, with Netanyahu,” commented one Moscow source. “In making all his concessions, one after another, Putin has been watched very carefully. His civilian advisors – [Foreign Policy Advisor Yury] Ushakov in particular – are making mistakes. They expect[ed] the show of strength in Syria would have changed US and European attitudes, and they would listen. They didn’t. So the Russian military have reminded Putin – we told you so.”

On Monday morning, following an unprecedented Sunday briefing at the Defence Ministry, Defence Minister Sergei Shoigu announced measures which Putin has repeatedly dismissed over many years. The  new Russian war policy puts a stop to Putin’s assurances to the US, the European NATO powers and Israel that he was resisting the recommendations of his General Staff.  Putin’s resistance ended on Monday morning. Shoigu and the Stavka ended it. (more…)

by Editor - Monday, September 24th, 2018
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By John Helmer, Moscow

A copy of the Russian-Turkish agreement, negotiated on Monday in Sochi by President Vladimir Putin and President Recep Tayyip Erdogan,  has appeared. If its authenticity is confirmed, it will mark the first official Russian acknowledgement of partition of Syria, allowing Turkey to resume control of the Ottoman territory in northwestern Syria which was lost following the Turkish defeat in World War I.

According to the published terms,  Putin has agreed to Turkey playing the role of “guarantor” of ceasefires throughout Syria. Putin has also accepted reinforcement and expansion of Turkish military forces in the Idlib governorate according to the formula of “fortification” of Turkish “observation posts”; their number, already twelve, has not been restricted in area or limited in manning and firepower in the new pact. Putin also agreed to “take all necessary meassures to ensure that military operations and attacks on Idlib will be avoided and the existing status quo will be maintained.” This is Russia’s undertaking to prevent the Syrian Government and its forces from reclaiming Syrian territory and resuming sovereingty lost to the US and NATO-backed forces seeking to take power in Damascus.

The full extent of the new Turkish-ruled territory  has been postponed, according to the wording of the Sochi pact. “The delineation of the exact lines of the demilitarised zone will be determined,” Point 4 says, “through further consultations.” This proviso allows Turkish forces to consolidate their territorial control eastward towards Aleppo, under Russian cover, ignoring the Syrian government.

(more…)

by Editor - Wednesday, September 19th, 2018
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By John Helmer, Moscow

“When people die, especially in such unfortunate circumstances,” President Vladimir Putin said at a Kremlin press conference  on Tuesday afternoon, “it is always a tragedy”. The president was responding to the destruction of a Russian reconnaissance aircraft and the deaths of fifteen crew members during an Israeli Air Force attack on Syria on Monday evening. The Israeli operation was coordinated with British and French commands to spoof, confuse and overwhelm Russian and Syrian air defences.

“It is always a tragedy,” Putin went on – “a tragedy for all of us, for the nation and for the families of our people who lost their lives… In this case, it is more a chain of tragic circumstances because an Israeli fighter did not down our aircraft. It goes without saying that we must get to the bottom of this. Our attitude towards this tragedy is set forth in a statement by our Defence Ministry, and has been fully coordinated with me. As for reciprocal action, this will be primarily aimed at ensuring additional security for our military and our facilities in the Syrian Arab Republic. These steps will be seen by everyone.”

What will be seen by everyone has already been registered. According to Turkey, Putin has conceded Turkish military occupation of the Idlib governorate of northwest Syria, allowing Turkish Army  reinforcements from the west and north,  but preventing Syrian Army operations in defence of Syrian territory. According to Israel, Putin has accepted the Israel Defence Force’s (IDF) air superiority over central as well as southern Syria and a free-fire zone for any target in Syria which Israel regards as hostile, including Russian military operations.  According to the Russian military command, Putin has forfeited his defence of Russian forces in Syria to the combination of Israel, France and the UK, which coordinated the combat against Syria on Monday evening. (more…)

by Editor - Tuesday, September 18th, 2018
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By Max van der Werff, Amsterdam*

Today was a remarkable day. For the first time the Ministry of Defence of the Russian Federation held a press conference about the MH17 case in which it took a pro-active stance, instead of  responding, as it has before,  to challenges from its “partners” in the west. (more…)

by Editor - Monday, September 17th, 2018
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By John Helmer, Moscow

Greek investigative journalist Michalis Ignatiou revealed on Sunday the classified White House document of August 13, 1974, in which Henry Kissinger persuaded then-US President Gerald Ford that Turkey should be supported by the US in their two-wave invasion of Cyprus, seizing and occupying over a third of the island, deterring the Greek defence of Cyprus, and encouraging the Turks to ignore United Nations (UN) condemnation. According to Kissinger, “the Turkish tactics are right — grab what they want and then negotiate on the basis of possession. But if the Turks run loose on Cyprus, the Greeks could come unglued. We certainly do not want a war between the two, but if it came to that, Turkey is more important to us and they have a political structure which could produce a Qadhafi.”

This month the Kissinger scheme is being revived by the US, with support from Germany, France and the UK, to support Turkey in its seizure of the city and governorate of Idlib, in northwest Syria. Threats of US and NATO missile attacks have deterred the Syrian Army from attempting to reclaim its own territory. President Vladimir Putin has been pressured by the Turks, the US and NATO to delay Russian military support for the recovery of Idlib.

“There is no American reason why the Turks should not have one-third of Cyprus,” Kissinger told Ford in the Oval Office forty-four years ago.  Substitute Idlib for Cyprus today, and there is no American reason why the Turks should not have Idlib, no matter what UN resolutions on Syrian sovereignty require and the Kremlin supports.  Today, as Putin meets the Turkish leader Recep Tayyip Erdogan in Sochi, the question to be decided is whether the Kissinger scheme will prevail again. (more…)

by Editor - Sunday, September 16th, 2018
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By John Helmer, Moscow

Truth, like eating boots, can be funny to watch.  This is because truth and boots are equally easy to cook and just as unappetising,  unless you are starving. (more…)

by Editor - Friday, September 14th, 2018
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By John Helmer, Moscow

Falling for a honey trap of their own imagining is what over-educated fools do.

There is nothing new about the present American belief in the malevolent power of Russia to have penetrated the American mind; that’s to say, American bedrooms, smartphones, chat networks, voting machines, power grids, and most intimate of all, American gun clubs.  It’s an old, familiar phantom – the projection of exceptionalists who are being outclassed in their heads and beaten on the ground. Americans believe they will only be desirable if they are over-powering. That’s their honey trap.  

Between 1968 and 1973, when the American infantry were pinned down by the Vietnamese forces, failing to defeat them with what the US Army and US Air Force thought was their overwhelming superiority of firepower, the ordinary American soldier believed the reason was the inverse of US military capacity. The Vietnamese were  winning, the soldier thought, because of their superiority, not only in fighting spirit, but in arms – ghost tanks, ghost helicopter gunships,  etc.

Since the end of Soviet rule, it was to be expected that Russians would abandon their own exceptionalist ideology and become infatuated by American and European things of every description, including things to spend money on, and safe havens to luxuriate among those things. It’s also to be expected that time is required before Russian things can be valued for their own sake by Russians. (more…)

by Editor - Thursday, September 13th, 2018
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By John Helmer, Moscow

The newest type of American bunker-busting bomb is expensive. So it’s understandable that the United States Air Force (USAF) doesn’t want a Russian to sabotage the bomb by installing steel casings which break apart before landing, or fuzes which detonate prematurely, or tail kits flying off- target, or warheads which bounce instead of bust.

On April 6, the US Treasury dropped a bunker-buster on the Russian oligarch Victor Vekselberg (lead picture, top) in an attempt to destroy the worldwide business of his Renova group of companies. The US Treasury declared  Vekselberg had been targeted “for operating in the energy sector of the Russian Federation economy.  Vekselberg is the founder and Chairman of the Board of Directors of the Renova Group.  The Renova Group is comprised of asset management companies and investment funds that own and manage assets in several sectors of the Russian economy, including energy.”

Vekselberg has also owned 26.8% of the Swiss steelmaker Schmolz+Bickenbach (aka Swiss Steel, S+B), which in turn owns all of the US steel forgings specialist, A. Finkl & Sons (aka Finkl Steel) of Chicago. Because the loss-making Swiss group was counting on the USAF bomb contract to boost revenues and profits from Finkl — it accounts for about 10% of S+B’s annual revenues — it was a sore point for the loser of the bomb contract, Ellwood National Forge Company of Ellwood, Pennsylvania,  that a Russian under sanctions might get his hands on the bomb deal, and even on the bomb itself. (more…)

by Editor - Tuesday, September 11th, 2018
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